Conspirator.
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Religion is good if used correctly, but the issue with religion is that there are EXTREMISTS, and those guys abuse it and try and use it to justify their actions. I am sure you know what I am talking about.
[Discussion] Poll: Do you think religion is a good thing or a bad thing?
- Thread starter Dannie
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tanmoydas1992
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Society with good discipline is something we need. not the religion itshelf. Religion only creates neverending conflicts.:eww:
tanmoydas1992
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trick master
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Religion is good, but it must not be misinterpreted as science, in a sense that religion shouldn't explain things about the world such as the universe, our origins and so on, but rather, it exists to attemp to show us how we should live in an emotional and spiritual level for now, because soon enough, science will answer those questions as well.
RasenUchihaChaos
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RasenUchihaChaos
Active member
I know this a world without religion we have more violence less morality And more chaos
And I dont care what your religion as long as its not satanism
And I dont care what your religion as long as its not satanism
Scooby Doo
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Depends on what people make out of it. To some people, it made /makes their lives better.
Sadly, on the other hand, it's often abused.
Sadly, on the other hand, it's often abused.
Im going to address each of your points and point out what it actually is.(at least in terms of the religion I practice and believe in which is Christianity)
"I think it's a bad thing. Basically if you don't follow my religion then we can never get along or understand the same ideals because your religion is better than my non religion way of living, buy this only promotes ignorance"
That is bull that we can never get along or understand the same ideals. Getting along is about tolerance. It has nothing to do with agreement. That is why polar opposite couples can still be married strong for many many years.
It is not about "my religion" is better than your non religion way of living. It is about how there are certain things that you may do that I think is wrong. Immoral even. And the only reason I care, is because I want you to be saved and live on for eternity in paradise, instead of eternal punishment, or eternal death(i have not done enough research to learn what hell really is.)
The ironic thing is, is that you will try to promote your non religion way of living on others. Just the same as a religious person might on you. Everybody regardless of religion tries to live by their sense of justice, and how is a rightoues way of living.
For instance i would be willing to bet quite a bit that you do not approve of a racist, and that he should be fine. You would try to promote your non racist way of living. etc.
Similar to beauty, ignorance is in the eyes of the beholder.
As there is nothing God could do to prove his existance in a way that all of man would believe in him(nor would he do such a thing), and there is no way to prove non scientific things with science, we can neither confirm nor deny Gods existance.
So then it becomes a question of what you believe. And each side tries to say the other is ignorant. And both are essentially correct.
Then it goes down to lifestyles. Someone who is being held accountable to a higher being, must listen to what that higher being says. As they have a higher being, their morals must be rigid. They dont get to pick and choose what morals are right and wrong.
Someone who does not have a higher being, has noone to be held accountable to, other than themself, and will do what they want. A society like this has no clear cut morals. They change with the peoples thoughts, and whims.
Here though is where the "evil" in religion comes in. As religion has rigid morals, and standards etc, it can be easy for a evil man to distort those values to his design. See westboro baptist church. If you read anything about Jesus, then you should know that he would not do things like show up to a soldiers funeral and mock and insult the soldier and his family. Jesus was not about hate. He did have anger, but it was righteous anger.
"It gives your mindset that brink of superiority for having so called "faith" in something that you cannot prove. Religion manipulates people with no type of thinking."
Non religion is the exact same way. You cannot prove nor disprove God. The ONLY people who do not rely of faith are those whose stance is simply "I do not know".
Religion is not manipulative. People are manipulative. And religion gives you power over people. And human nature has shown that when there is a position of power, people can and will abuse it.
There are plenty of open minded thinking people in the various religions. In fact it is you who is putting your "nonreligion" in a position of superiority over religion by making a closeminded statement like that.
There have been many many many really intelligent people and debates that have gone on about this subject for hundreds if not thousands of years. As religion involves supernatural things, and supernatural beings, there is no logical way you can prove they exist or dont exist.
I as a Christian, never view my belief as superior. I view it as equal to your belief. However I believe it is the correct belief, and that those who do not believe perish. As I care about my fellow man, I will try to bring you to belief in God, and our Savior Jesus, and will try to help you attain eternal life with God in paradise.
I will not force you to follow my beliefs, or force you to follow my religion. However I expect you to tolerate my right to practice my religion publicaly, and for you to follow my rules or laws in my house or business. If you have a problem with them, then you can try to negotiate. If you still have a problem, then you simply do not join my business, or come into my home out of your own free will.
And just as you can make governing choices with your nonreligious principles, I could make governinng choices with my religious principles.
But seriously though. If you think religion just manipulates people who do no type of thinking, you need to go meet more people. Because the ones you have seen, are just brain dead people anyways. And thinking is not the same as thinking in a way you agree with. So for example if you think man made climate change is happening and is really really bad, and someone disagrees, you can both be thinking. Or you could both be ignorant, and close minded, and not really ponder and examine what is actually happening.
"It brainwashes them to the point where they would actively fight against ideals which would improve upon society but are viewed negative because their religion doesn't approve of it."
And who the hell decides that those values would improve society?
Genocide can be easily viewed in a way which would improve society. Millions upon millions of people spend tons of money on giving aid to poor villages in africa, or other places. Those people contribute nothing to the rest of the world. Why dont we just better the rest of society and just bomb them, and then we wont spend that money on helping them.
Why dont we just kill all paralyzed people, and retarded(mentally handicapped) people. They just drain on society. They just force us to waste our time and money keeping them alive.
Or we have 7 billion people on this planet. That is to many. Lets just kill 1/2 of them so everyone can live better.
Is that an extreme example? Absolutely. But when you have the arrogance to claim that a religion fights ideals which would better society, when those ideals are subject to the whims of people, and can easily be distorted, and subject to non religious brainwashing.
If you were more specific in the ideals I could address them specifically.
But let me point out 2 opposing ideals from 2 books I read.
In one book the people were forced to love the government. And *** was something that was abstained from, and all passion and love was taken out of it. It was simply for reproduction. Marriages were just rational unions, specifically chosen and approved based on lack of passion and love. Any body who disagreed with those values, or questioned the government, or the world, they were sent to a department where they would be broken down and rebuilt to love the government in the world. And I am talking they were rebuilt to TRULY love the government and the world.
This was possible due to the government constantly monitoring every person.
The history of the past was erased and changed to suite the governments needs. And everyone was happy and nobody was poor. Everyone worked to help each other. Everyone was shielded from the truth by the constant lies from the propaganda.
The other book, was a similar situation, where everyone was happy, and prosperous. And likewise they also loved the world. People who did not want to join the collective were sent off to remote places with likeminded people.
In this book it was the opposite of the other in many ways. *** was despised and ridiculed if it was used for a form of reproduction. Everybody was bred in a lab. Everyone was bred for the job they would do, and so it would be the job they loved and wanted to do. *** was open to anyone. It was not done with passion or love, but for physical pleasure only. There was no such thing as long term commitments, or long term relationships.
In both stories the people were lovingly enjoying their lives. There was no real war. But everybody thought the same way. And both times the protagonists(both of whom met an unfortunate demise, the first one, was broken and rebuilt to love the way things were, and the second met his death) were the ones with the ideals which would "worsen" society. Both had no religions.
So the moral of these stories, is that there is not many true ideals which would "improve society". All ideals make something worse to improve something. It is up to the individual, what ideals are worth it and which ones are not.
For example you may have the ideal that all guns should be illegal. You think that this would better society. It would stop deaths from shootings. But would it really better society? It would stop people from being able to hunt, and control animal populations. It would leave people defenseless against those who illegally have guns.
Or you may have the ideal that everyone should have guns. You think this would better society. It would have everyone be able to protect themselves from shootings, and gun violence. But would it really better society? It would cause unneccesary injury and death due to stupid immature people who would bring and use a gun in a argument. It could be serious.
When you have religion, you have higher ideals than yourself. You have some infalliable ideals. Things that cannot be corrupted and changed to suit your wants. You hold yourself to a higher standard.
My short simple answer to the thread though is this.
Is religion a bad thing? Absolutely not. There are some bad religions, and cults, that are really bad things. But the major religions are not bad at all.
What IS bad, is people. Just simple plain people.
Imagine for a minute a world where everyone is perfect and follows a religion. There would be no real wars and world peace. There would be prosperity, and no need for much of a government.
A world where everyone follows their own religion perfectly, would be a bit more conflicting, but there would still be world peace. And prosperity. And no need for a major government. Most religions have very similar ideals.
A world without religion, however is subject to each and everyones perfect ideals. And it would be chaotic, and warsome, or peaceful slavery.. That is because people dont have a higher being to hold themselves accountable. You would have some people who would think it is neccesary to kill others, for the sake of their justice. There would just be way to many principles that people could disagree and fight over. There is very little that all humans can agree on naturally. Think of something like the eye of the moon plan. That is because of someones ideal. Both madara and obito followed their ideals nearly perfectly. But their ideal caused enslaved paradise.
Sasuke wants to burn the bijuu. Naruto wants to save them. Everyone wants to be hokage. These are conflicts of ideals. And major conflict of ideals, leads to actual conflict, and chaos.
In no way am I saying non religious people are bad, or have bad ideals. But there is not any real way to justify an ideal without a higher being. With a human being solely in charge, it becomes corruptable.
Religion for the most part is a good thing. However it has and continues to be abused and corrupted, by people with human flaws. And people being imperfect, misinterpret, and do not follow their religion.
Christianity has had many problems in the past mostly. In the middle ages, there were not many people who could read the bible. So they were stuck with whatever the priest told them. The priest could have told them that Jesus said "kill all non Christians and you will go to heaven, and if you dont you go to hell." (something that was NEVER said by Jesus)
However after Martin luthers movement, people began to be able to read the source material, and learn what Jesus actually said.
Even today though, there are people who have not read the bible themselves, but just listen to their pastor.(cough cough westboro baptist) And there are plenty of people who vastly misinterpret what is said.(the source could say " this flower is blueish", and the person reading could interpret it as "that animal is black")
There are still plenty of people who use it for power.
But this is not something unique to religion. It is just a part of human nature. One of humans many flaws. It would happen just the same but with different things, without religion. And it does.
So religion while primarily a force for good, winds up being more neutral, because of imperfect humans abusing it, or ignoring it.
People are ignorant and close minded without religion, and people are open minded and well educated with religion(just as the reverse is true of course)
HUMANS, are good and bad. Ignorant and enlightened. Close minded and open minded. I hold the belief that there are equal amounts of idiots in every aspect of life. Equal amounts of closeminded people in all aspects of life. I hold this belief because we are all humans. And all have different beliefs for the same and different reasons.
It would be a very boring world where everyone agrees on everything, and only thinks one way.(which would not neccesarily happen even if all the world followed one religion perfectly. Because there are lots of things in life that are not covered at all in religion.)
Conflict is often viewed in a negative light. But without conflict there would not be peace. Just think of how little you appreciate water when you are surrounded by it, compared to when you are in a desert without much of it.
Conflict is what can make a bond stronger than a bond without conflict. It allows both sides of the conflict to achieve better ideas than without.
Conflict provides a different perspective that highlights new possibilities.
"I think it's a bad thing. Basically if you don't follow my religion then we can never get along or understand the same ideals because your religion is better than my non religion way of living, buy this only promotes ignorance"
That is bull that we can never get along or understand the same ideals. Getting along is about tolerance. It has nothing to do with agreement. That is why polar opposite couples can still be married strong for many many years.
It is not about "my religion" is better than your non religion way of living. It is about how there are certain things that you may do that I think is wrong. Immoral even. And the only reason I care, is because I want you to be saved and live on for eternity in paradise, instead of eternal punishment, or eternal death(i have not done enough research to learn what hell really is.)
The ironic thing is, is that you will try to promote your non religion way of living on others. Just the same as a religious person might on you. Everybody regardless of religion tries to live by their sense of justice, and how is a rightoues way of living.
For instance i would be willing to bet quite a bit that you do not approve of a racist, and that he should be fine. You would try to promote your non racist way of living. etc.
Similar to beauty, ignorance is in the eyes of the beholder.
As there is nothing God could do to prove his existance in a way that all of man would believe in him(nor would he do such a thing), and there is no way to prove non scientific things with science, we can neither confirm nor deny Gods existance.
So then it becomes a question of what you believe. And each side tries to say the other is ignorant. And both are essentially correct.
Then it goes down to lifestyles. Someone who is being held accountable to a higher being, must listen to what that higher being says. As they have a higher being, their morals must be rigid. They dont get to pick and choose what morals are right and wrong.
Someone who does not have a higher being, has noone to be held accountable to, other than themself, and will do what they want. A society like this has no clear cut morals. They change with the peoples thoughts, and whims.
Here though is where the "evil" in religion comes in. As religion has rigid morals, and standards etc, it can be easy for a evil man to distort those values to his design. See westboro baptist church. If you read anything about Jesus, then you should know that he would not do things like show up to a soldiers funeral and mock and insult the soldier and his family. Jesus was not about hate. He did have anger, but it was righteous anger.
"It gives your mindset that brink of superiority for having so called "faith" in something that you cannot prove. Religion manipulates people with no type of thinking."
Non religion is the exact same way. You cannot prove nor disprove God. The ONLY people who do not rely of faith are those whose stance is simply "I do not know".
Religion is not manipulative. People are manipulative. And religion gives you power over people. And human nature has shown that when there is a position of power, people can and will abuse it.
There are plenty of open minded thinking people in the various religions. In fact it is you who is putting your "nonreligion" in a position of superiority over religion by making a closeminded statement like that.
There have been many many many really intelligent people and debates that have gone on about this subject for hundreds if not thousands of years. As religion involves supernatural things, and supernatural beings, there is no logical way you can prove they exist or dont exist.
I as a Christian, never view my belief as superior. I view it as equal to your belief. However I believe it is the correct belief, and that those who do not believe perish. As I care about my fellow man, I will try to bring you to belief in God, and our Savior Jesus, and will try to help you attain eternal life with God in paradise.
I will not force you to follow my beliefs, or force you to follow my religion. However I expect you to tolerate my right to practice my religion publicaly, and for you to follow my rules or laws in my house or business. If you have a problem with them, then you can try to negotiate. If you still have a problem, then you simply do not join my business, or come into my home out of your own free will.
And just as you can make governing choices with your nonreligious principles, I could make governinng choices with my religious principles.
But seriously though. If you think religion just manipulates people who do no type of thinking, you need to go meet more people. Because the ones you have seen, are just brain dead people anyways. And thinking is not the same as thinking in a way you agree with. So for example if you think man made climate change is happening and is really really bad, and someone disagrees, you can both be thinking. Or you could both be ignorant, and close minded, and not really ponder and examine what is actually happening.
"It brainwashes them to the point where they would actively fight against ideals which would improve upon society but are viewed negative because their religion doesn't approve of it."
And who the hell decides that those values would improve society?
Genocide can be easily viewed in a way which would improve society. Millions upon millions of people spend tons of money on giving aid to poor villages in africa, or other places. Those people contribute nothing to the rest of the world. Why dont we just better the rest of society and just bomb them, and then we wont spend that money on helping them.
Why dont we just kill all paralyzed people, and retarded(mentally handicapped) people. They just drain on society. They just force us to waste our time and money keeping them alive.
Or we have 7 billion people on this planet. That is to many. Lets just kill 1/2 of them so everyone can live better.
Is that an extreme example? Absolutely. But when you have the arrogance to claim that a religion fights ideals which would better society, when those ideals are subject to the whims of people, and can easily be distorted, and subject to non religious brainwashing.
If you were more specific in the ideals I could address them specifically.
But let me point out 2 opposing ideals from 2 books I read.
In one book the people were forced to love the government. And *** was something that was abstained from, and all passion and love was taken out of it. It was simply for reproduction. Marriages were just rational unions, specifically chosen and approved based on lack of passion and love. Any body who disagreed with those values, or questioned the government, or the world, they were sent to a department where they would be broken down and rebuilt to love the government in the world. And I am talking they were rebuilt to TRULY love the government and the world.
This was possible due to the government constantly monitoring every person.
The history of the past was erased and changed to suite the governments needs. And everyone was happy and nobody was poor. Everyone worked to help each other. Everyone was shielded from the truth by the constant lies from the propaganda.
The other book, was a similar situation, where everyone was happy, and prosperous. And likewise they also loved the world. People who did not want to join the collective were sent off to remote places with likeminded people.
In this book it was the opposite of the other in many ways. *** was despised and ridiculed if it was used for a form of reproduction. Everybody was bred in a lab. Everyone was bred for the job they would do, and so it would be the job they loved and wanted to do. *** was open to anyone. It was not done with passion or love, but for physical pleasure only. There was no such thing as long term commitments, or long term relationships.
In both stories the people were lovingly enjoying their lives. There was no real war. But everybody thought the same way. And both times the protagonists(both of whom met an unfortunate demise, the first one, was broken and rebuilt to love the way things were, and the second met his death) were the ones with the ideals which would "worsen" society. Both had no religions.
So the moral of these stories, is that there is not many true ideals which would "improve society". All ideals make something worse to improve something. It is up to the individual, what ideals are worth it and which ones are not.
For example you may have the ideal that all guns should be illegal. You think that this would better society. It would stop deaths from shootings. But would it really better society? It would stop people from being able to hunt, and control animal populations. It would leave people defenseless against those who illegally have guns.
Or you may have the ideal that everyone should have guns. You think this would better society. It would have everyone be able to protect themselves from shootings, and gun violence. But would it really better society? It would cause unneccesary injury and death due to stupid immature people who would bring and use a gun in a argument. It could be serious.
When you have religion, you have higher ideals than yourself. You have some infalliable ideals. Things that cannot be corrupted and changed to suit your wants. You hold yourself to a higher standard.
My short simple answer to the thread though is this.
Is religion a bad thing? Absolutely not. There are some bad religions, and cults, that are really bad things. But the major religions are not bad at all.
What IS bad, is people. Just simple plain people.
Imagine for a minute a world where everyone is perfect and follows a religion. There would be no real wars and world peace. There would be prosperity, and no need for much of a government.
A world where everyone follows their own religion perfectly, would be a bit more conflicting, but there would still be world peace. And prosperity. And no need for a major government. Most religions have very similar ideals.
A world without religion, however is subject to each and everyones perfect ideals. And it would be chaotic, and warsome, or peaceful slavery.. That is because people dont have a higher being to hold themselves accountable. You would have some people who would think it is neccesary to kill others, for the sake of their justice. There would just be way to many principles that people could disagree and fight over. There is very little that all humans can agree on naturally. Think of something like the eye of the moon plan. That is because of someones ideal. Both madara and obito followed their ideals nearly perfectly. But their ideal caused enslaved paradise.
Sasuke wants to burn the bijuu. Naruto wants to save them. Everyone wants to be hokage. These are conflicts of ideals. And major conflict of ideals, leads to actual conflict, and chaos.
In no way am I saying non religious people are bad, or have bad ideals. But there is not any real way to justify an ideal without a higher being. With a human being solely in charge, it becomes corruptable.
Religion for the most part is a good thing. However it has and continues to be abused and corrupted, by people with human flaws. And people being imperfect, misinterpret, and do not follow their religion.
Christianity has had many problems in the past mostly. In the middle ages, there were not many people who could read the bible. So they were stuck with whatever the priest told them. The priest could have told them that Jesus said "kill all non Christians and you will go to heaven, and if you dont you go to hell." (something that was NEVER said by Jesus)
However after Martin luthers movement, people began to be able to read the source material, and learn what Jesus actually said.
Even today though, there are people who have not read the bible themselves, but just listen to their pastor.(cough cough westboro baptist) And there are plenty of people who vastly misinterpret what is said.(the source could say " this flower is blueish", and the person reading could interpret it as "that animal is black")
There are still plenty of people who use it for power.
But this is not something unique to religion. It is just a part of human nature. One of humans many flaws. It would happen just the same but with different things, without religion. And it does.
So religion while primarily a force for good, winds up being more neutral, because of imperfect humans abusing it, or ignoring it.
People are ignorant and close minded without religion, and people are open minded and well educated with religion(just as the reverse is true of course)
HUMANS, are good and bad. Ignorant and enlightened. Close minded and open minded. I hold the belief that there are equal amounts of idiots in every aspect of life. Equal amounts of closeminded people in all aspects of life. I hold this belief because we are all humans. And all have different beliefs for the same and different reasons.
It would be a very boring world where everyone agrees on everything, and only thinks one way.(which would not neccesarily happen even if all the world followed one religion perfectly. Because there are lots of things in life that are not covered at all in religion.)
Conflict is often viewed in a negative light. But without conflict there would not be peace. Just think of how little you appreciate water when you are surrounded by it, compared to when you are in a desert without much of it.
Conflict is what can make a bond stronger than a bond without conflict. It allows both sides of the conflict to achieve better ideas than without.
Conflict provides a different perspective that highlights new possibilities.
Big text wall. You have been warned.
Edit: The poll options are stupid. For someone who seems to suggest non religion is better than religion, and that religion is too close minded, the poll options are way to limited.
Better options would be:
1. Im religious and I think religion is bad.
2. Im religious and I think religion is good.
3. Im religious and I respect both sides of the arguement.
4-6. Replace im religious to Im not religious in 1-3
7. Im religious and I think religion can have some flaws.
8 Im not religious and I think religion has some flaws.
9 Im religious and I think religion is neccesary.
10 Im not religious and I think religion is neccesary.
Something like that.
The poll options currently are pretty much is religion stupid or not. They are NOT about the topic which is whether it is GOOD or BAD, or Neutral.
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Kishi Uzumaki
Active member
Awards
If I'm not been a Buddhist , i probably have been a atheist .
Religion isn't a bad thing , how it is used by religious people make it bad .
Religion isn't a bad thing , how it is used by religious people make it bad .
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